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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27613661">Fox Company</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/softerEpilogue/pseuds/softerEpilogue'>softerEpilogue</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>All For The Game - Nora Sakavic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Military School AU, Wymack DILF agenda, an au that exactly no one asked for but you’re getting anyway, slowburn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:49:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,674</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27613661</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/softerEpilogue/pseuds/softerEpilogue</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Wymack offered Neil a scholarship through the Palmetto State University Corps Of Cadets, he neglected to mention a lot of things. Including, but not limited to; the uniforms, the excessive yelling, the 5 am wakeups, and last but certainly not least, the short blonde sophomore who seems to have it out for Neil. Personally.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Neil Josten &amp; Andrew Minyard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The  senior military college AU absolutely  no one asked for but I’m giving you anyway. I have no excuses for this other than 1. my love for relentlessly hyperspecific AU's and 2. a twitter groupchat.</p>
<p>I’m playing fast and loose with SC geography here, and I know Savannah and Charleston better than Columbia so that’s what y’all get. Or will get. Later. When I finish writing it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Neil’s burner phone buzzed in his pocket three times in calculus. As soon as the bell rang and class ended, he ducked into the bathroom. He locked the stall behind him and pulled the phone out. There was only one person who had its number, his mother’s brother, the one who’d insisted he have the phone in the first place. For emergencies only, Uncle Stuart had muttered, sliding the phone into Neil’s backpack before he boarded the plane.</p>
<p>(0114)-237-4448<br/>
09:53<br/>
Neil.</p>
<p>(0114)-237-4448<br/>
09:54<br/>
Are you still interested in going to university?</p>
<p>(0114)-237-4448<br/>
10:12<br/>
Decide quickly.</p>
<p>
Neil looked up from the phone and stared briefly at the plastic of the stall door. Then back at the phone. The message was still there. College had been a pipe dream, something the other guys on the cross country team talked about on easy pace days. Something for them, with their normal lives and normal parents and normal futures. Not for him, with his… empty house that he was squatting in and one relative with a dubiously legal job in the UK. Stuart did what he could from a distance , even though it usually wasn’t much. The phone here, a bit of cash there. A heads-up if Neil and his mother needed to disappear again. Even after Neil’s mother had been killed, he’d still sent the warnings. Where he’d gotten the info, Neil didn’t know, and his mother hadn’t asked. Neil continued the tradition. The only time he’d ever asked, his mother had just lit a cigarette and ignored him. When he asked again, she’d told him Stuart did “something for the British government” and not to ask again. So he didn’t.</p>
<p>And now Stuart was texting him out of the blue, and Neil wasn’t sure how to answer. He wasn’t sure why Stuart was asking. It didn’t seem like a trap. If Stuart wanted him dead, he’d be dead. He wouldn’t even have to fly over himself. All it would take was one call to Baltimore.</p>
<p>If it wasn’t a trap, it might still be an opportunity. He typed out his answer and pressed send, then shoved the phone back into his bag just as the bell rang.</p>
<p>(716)-832-0012<br/>
10:35<br/>
Yes.</p>
<p>He made it to history five minutes late, and slid into his seat in the back.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” he mouthed at Coach Hernandez, who just shot him his “we’ll talk about this at practice later,” look. Neil could already feel the sprints he was going to have to run. In retrospect, being late to the class his cross country coach taught had been a poor strategic decision on his part.</p>
<p>The last two periods of school crept by. His phone sat silently in his bag, and for once in his life, Neil wanted it to ring. Something in him itched to know why Stuart had asked the question. He tried to run it off at practice, letting his mind slip off track, focusing on nothing but the thud of his feet on the ground, the ragged catch of his breathing, the pounding of his heart in his ears. He stretched out his stride and pulled ahead of the group, the miles ticking by. By the time the school came back in sight, he’d put a solid gap between him and the group behind him. He crossed the scrubby grass, baked brown by the early June sun, and headed for the back lot by the stadium.</p>
<p>Coach Hernandez waved him over, and Neil jogged across the parking lot towards him. He slowed slightly at the sight of the man next to Coach. He was probably forty, and dressed like it, in an aggressively orange polo shirt that did nothing to hide his powerful build or the heavy tattoos covering his arms. Overall, fairly standard for Arizona. That wasn’t what made the hairs on the back of Neil’s neck stand on end. What did it was the close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, the too-watchful eyes sunk deep into their sockets. The way he wore his clothes like a uniform. Military. Or ex military, the little watchful voice in the back of Neil’s head whispered, Marine, it added as he drew closer and saw the large eagle, globe, and anchor on the man’s forearm. Was it one of his father’s men? He didn’t recognize the face, but he’d been running for ten years. Surely Nathan would have some new blood. Mercenaries didn’t have a habit of long lives, so there was always some turnover in the ranks. He wondered if he should just run now, and ask questions later.</p>
<p>Only prey runs away, his father’s voice hissed in his head. He ignored it. Neil squared his shoulders and slowed to a stop in front of the two men.</p>
<p>“Josten,” Coach Hernandez said, “This is Colonel Wymack. He’s here to talk to you from—Palmetto State, you said?”</p>
<p>“Lieutenant Colonel, actually. And yes.” The man confirmed, and stuck his hand out for Neil to shake..</p>
<p>Coach Hernandez made a well go on gesture at Neil, and then jogged off to yell at the runners trickling in behind him.</p>
<p>“Neil Josten.” Neil said, and shook Wymack’s hand.</p>
<p>“Heard you clocked a four-minute mile this season.” LTC Wymack said casually.</p>
<p>Neil shrugged.</p>
<p>“Once or twice.” He agreed, waiting for the other shoe to drop.</p>
<p>“It’s too late in the year for me to offer you an athletic scholarship, even if I could hand those out, but I can get you a Corps scholarship.”</p>
<p>“Corpse?” Neil asked, certain he’d misheard.</p>
<p>“Corps. As in the Palmetto State Corps Of Cadets. Not corpse as in dead.” LTC Wymack clarified. Neil was mystified. Why was a Lieutenant Colonel somehow associated with a civilian college traveling halfway across the country to talk to him about his mile splits? His confusion must have showed on his face, because Wymack continued. “Stuart said you were interested. He also implied that finances could be… a problem. Luckily for you, I had a kid drop his scholarship this morning.” He handed Neil a Manila folder. Neil opened it. Paper clipped to the inside was a stack of paperwork and a glossy brochure that looked like it’d been designed in 2003. He flipped through the paperwork, giving the documents a cursory glance.</p>
<p>The text from that morning suddenly made sense. Uncle Stuart had called in a favor. Neil was almost touched. Something strange, light and…hopeful?… bubbled in his chest, and he looked up at Wymack, and made a decision. If his mother was still alive, she’d kill him. But she wasn’t, and he was, and he had a chance.</p>
<p>“Got a pen?” Neil asked.</p>
<p>Neil had been in South Carolina for less than twelve hours and in his dorm room for approximately ten minutes when the door slammed open and bounced off the wall. Instinctively, he hurled the first thing his hand hit (his shoebox, with the fancy new dress shoes he’d been given by the nice old lady at the uniform warehouse) at the figure in the doorway, and reached for his duffle bag, ready to run. But the short blonde kid who'd kicked in his door was already gone, leaving nothing behind but a bad attitude and a yell of "GET IN THE HALLWAY, FRESHMAN!" ringing in his ears. Neil sighed internally, shoved his duffle back behind the drawers under the bed, and went out into the hallway. It's not like he hadn't researched (obsessively) what Palmetto State's Cadet Corps was supposed to be like, but he'd expected to have at least an hour or two to get his stuff put away and his classes sorted out.</p>
<p>Nope.</p>
<p>A second angry blonde midget (or maybe the first one, back again?) stalked in through the door. In his hand, he had a long wood pole with an embroidered orange pennant hanging off the top. The bottom end was tipped with a metal cap, and for one mad second, Neil thought it was some kind of spear.</p>
<p>The boy scraped the tip of the pole across the floor, and it made a noise like a knife being drawn.</p>
<p>“Did he stutter, freshman?” The boy drawled.</p>
<p>“No,” Neil answered, unable to keep a thread of irritation out of his voice. It’s all a game, the first semester, Wymack had told him as he walked him to the dorm, just play the game and it’ll be easy. Well, easy enough. The blonde boy gave him a sharklike grin.</p>
<p>“Then you should probably get moving, shouldn’t you?”</p>
<p>“You’re in the door.” Neil retorted. The boy laughed at him.</p>
<p>“I am.”</p>
<p>And then he stepped back, out of the doorway, careful not to let the flag catch on the frame, and let the door swing shut behind him with a definitive thud.</p>
<p>So there he was, standing locked up uncomfortably at attention with his heels pressed up against the baseboard next to his open dorm room door and a kid his age was screaming in his face about how he looked like a mess. If he hadn’t grown up in his father’s house, it might have been intimidating. It certainly seemed to be for the kid next to him, who was shaking like a chihuahua. The guy yelling at him, a blonde boy even shorter than him, which was saying something, pivoted neatly and, without loosing any volume, switched to berating chihuahua boy. Neil inhaled deeply and tried to blend into the cinder block wall. And then the door across the hall opened and Kevin fucking Day, the adopted son of his father’s biggest business partner, stepped out and the bottom fell out of Neil’s stomach</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Day one, and Neil is...regretting...his choices</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Did I edit this? No. That’s a problem for future me.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Neil’s mind went blank for a half second. And then it screamed <i>run</i>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The last time Neil had seen Kevin Day was the night before his mother had taken him and left. She had found the three of them, Neil (<i>Nathaniel, </i>then<span>), </span>Kevin, and Riko, playing in the front hall of Colonel Moriyama’s house at Ft. Meade.  It had been a  Christmas party, Neil remembered, one of the interminably boring ones that Neil had dreaded. His mother had been wearing a green silk dress and a tight expression that had grown worse as the evening went on. Neil remembered the large envelope that had been tucked under her arm when she’d come to get him. She’d scooped him up and away and into her car and they’d driven and driven and eventually, he had fallen asleep, the city lights fading in the rearview mirror. He had never asked if they were going home, or where his father was. He didn’t particularly care, even at nine. He was just glad to be out, and equally glad to never look back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> But here Kevin was, the ghost of a past Neil could never quite outrun, no matter how many times he changed his name, shedding them like a too-small skin. And here Neil was, seconds away from running like a frightened rabbit.  He was sure that any second, Kevin’s eyes would lock with his and it would all be over, this wild dream slipping through his fingers like sand. Part of him was standing there in the hall frozen and trying to blend in with the cinder block wall. <i>If I don’t move, maybe he won’t see me,</i> some childish choice in his head whispered. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>A much larger part of him scoffed. It hadn’t worked when he was a child hiding from his father’s rages, why would it work now? Better to run through his backup plan one last time. Into the room, grab the duffle. He’d have at least a bit of surprise on his side, maybe enough to grab that stick out of the blonde boy’s hand. Take Kevin out at the knees. If he could make it to the stairs, he had a chance. If he could make it out the door, he could make it off campus. And if he could make it off campus, he’d be free.  As free as he’d ever been, anyway. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Kevin’s eyes locked with his. Neil’s heart pounded. His legs tensed, ready to carry him away. In a pinch, if he couldn’t get past Kevin,  he could lock the door behind him, pry the limiters off and go out the window, but that would take time, and he’d rather not chance the drop if he didn’t have to, two stories was manageable if he was lucky but he never had been, so—</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And then Kevin’s eyes slipped away, taking in the chaos in the hallway with cool detachment. Neil’s heart was still pounding, but Kevin hadn’t so much as glanced back at him.  </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sophomores, rest.” Kevin snapped, and the hall fell silent. Kevin’s eyes raked over the freshman lined up against the wall, and his lip curled. “Unfortunate.” He said, and sighed like a dissatisfied coach.  “They’re ready.” He added, to someone at the far end of the hall.  Neil heard the click of boots on tile, and then a girl a few years older than him stepped into his line of sight. She had an honest to god cavalry saber hanging off of her thick leather belt. Both it  and the belt looked well worn. Neil  was really starting to question his life choices. <span>Why</span> did that sword look like it had been used?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>LTC Wymack had given him a rough overview of how the corps worked when he’d picked Neil up from the bus station, and Neil had gathered a little more here and there as he’d been ushered around campus, picking up uniforms and  bedding and information. He’d learned that the corps units were organized like an infantry company, only smaller, with two platoons instead of four, a first sergeant and a commanding officer and all of the other various positions. He still wasn’t exactly sure what a guidon was, but he figured he’d get that pretty soon. It was either a person or a stick, apparently. He’d also learned that the corps worked differently than the army he’d grown up around, hearing his mother’s stories. He did not, however, remember his mother ever saying anything about swords. Neil would have remembered that. He tended to remember anything relating to sharp objects. Call it a survival mechanism.  The short blonde boy with the terminally  bored face scraped the metal end of his flag pole along the hallway floor. It made a grating, scraping noise, and left a long thin scratch in the polished floor. Neil’s mother also hadn’t said anything about small megalomaniacs with large sticks. Neil figured it was part of the learning curve. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Good Evening, Freshman!” The girl called down the hall. Her  voice was upbeat, but there was an underlying tone of…something… that Neil couldn’t quite figure out. “My name is Ms. Wilds, and I’m your Commanding Officer for this year. Tall dark and brooding over there  is Mister Day, and he’s your First Sergeant. Those were freebies. You’re going to have to catch everyone else to introduce yourselves, but we’ll explain that later. For now, welcome to Fox Company. Try not to die, that’ll be embarrassing for us. Try not to quit, either. That’ll be embarrassing for you. In a minute, I’m going to hand you over to my sophomores and juniors, who will be your…guides…for the next few weeks.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Neil could have sworn the two angry little blondes perked up at that. Or at least, the one with the stick looked less bored. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Try not to break them yet.” Wilds finished, looking at the upperclassman. An upperclassman with spiked hair that Neil was fairly sure was out of reg made an exaggerated sad face at her. She ignored him. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“One or two of them are fine.” Kevin added dismissively, looking directly at Neil’s roommate, who made an unfortunate squeaking noise. <i>He even </i><span class="u">sounds</span><i> like a chihuahua. </i>Neil thought.  <i>And trembles like one. </i></p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Don’t make me have to do more paperwork,” Wilds threatened cheerfully, and then she walked off down the hallway, her boots clicking on the tile like they had taps on the bottoms,  and leaned against the double doors that led to the stairs. The sophomores seemed to take it as a signal, and were on them again in a second. Someone shoved a wad of fabric into Neil’s chest. A shirt?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<i>Freshman</i>,” Kevin’s voice boomed over the din, “<i>Go into your rooms and change into the shirt you were just issued, your issued boots, blue jeans, and the hat that is next to your sink.” </i></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The freshman hesitated. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well, you heard him, get fucking moving!” One of the blondes yelled and then they were all yelling, and the freshman ducked back into their rooms, as much to escape the cacophony as to follow the order. The door swung shut behind them, and Neil and Chihuahua just. Looked at each other. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What the <i>fuck </i>was that?” Chihuahua said, his voice shaking as hard as he was. It wasn’t an unreasonable question. They’d come to college and joined a student org, and </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No idea.” Neil examined the shirt they’d thrown at him. It was a plain white tshirt that someone had stenciled his name <i>Josten</i> on the front in neat black letters. It had short sleeves, and Neil’s stomach clenched. He briefly considered grabbing his duffle and jumping out the window again. But the windows didn’t open far enough, and he hadn’t had time to break the screws that limited them yet. Most of the scarring was on his torso, anyway. And it didn’t seem much like the kids outside were going to be asking questions any time soon. They seemed mostly focused on yelling at him and didn’t particularly care about getting an answer to any questions they might deign to ask. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Someone banged on the door. The handle rattled. Chihuahua looked nauseous. (Neil figured he should probably learn the kid’s actual name eventually, but somehow he just couldn’t make himself care.)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Man, I didn’t even <i>want</i> to join this stupid thing,” Chihuahua complained, digging through his drawers and emerging with a pair of jeans,  “my fucking dad told me I had to. This is some bullshit, I’m quitting.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Neil didn’t reply. He just pulled his tshirt over his head as quickly as possible, using the closet door for cover. He yanked the white tshirt on and gave himself a quick once-over in the mirror hung on the door. The edges of old scars poked out from under the fabric here and there— a starburst of white, where his vest hadn’t quite stopped a round, half-covered by the collar. A few old knife marks on the back of his forearms. The old mark from the iron, edging out from the bottom of his left sleeve. He’d have to count on the fact that most people were too awkward to ask. He checked the roots of his hair, made sure no red was showing. He’d had to ditch the contacts years ago— they’d made his eyes burn, and he couldn’t afford to loose any vision. Not when a tiny blur in the sight of his weapon could mean the difference between life and death. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<i>Hurry up, fishies!”</i> Someone singsonged in the hallway. And then they kicked the door. Neil jumped, and remembered where he was. He wondered what the dorm doors were made out of, that they could take all this abuse. It was at least a little reassuring. “<i>You’ve got thirty seconds to get your asses into my hallway, or we’re going to have some fun!” </i>Another voice echoed through the door. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Neil scooped one of the two tan baseball caps off the sink, jammed it on his head, tossed the other one at Chihuahua, and stepped out into the hallway. The door slammed behind him and Neil suddenly had a much deeper understanding of how a deer caught in a car’s headlights felt as the entire hallway turned to look at him. Usually when he had this many people’s undivided attention, someone was about to try and kill him. A quick glance around informed him that not only had Chihuahua not joined him, he was also the only freshman in the hall.  He  did the only thing that came to mind; he got his back to the wall and tensed for a fight. A wide grin split the face of one of the seniors— <i>Boyd</i>, according to the name tag on his uniform— and he threw his head back and yelled down the hall. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><i>“</i>Your buddy’s all alone out here, freshman! Better hurry up!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Buddy alone!” One of the others echoed, and then they scattered, back to kicking doors and rattling handles.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“At least he’s already on the wall,” one of the seniors said, something like approval in her voice. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>A girl popped out of the room next to Neil’s and glanced around quickly, her sharp brown eyes taking in everything around her. She scrambled to stand beside him on the wall, and the sophomores swarmed them. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh good, there’s TWO now,” The blonde with the stick said, his tone still bored. His twin glared at them. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So what makes you special? Think you can just ditch your roommates like that?” Twin two (the angry one. Twin One was the one with the stick and the ennui problem, Neil had decided) snapped at them, “Why didn’t you come out at the same time as your buddies? You’re freshman, you do everything as a buddy class, that’s how it fucking works.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Neil and the girl glanced at each other. Neil was fairly sure she was thinking the same thing as him—<i>they don’t actually want an answer, right? </i></p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Eyes straight forward.” Twin one drawled. “No communicating in my hallway.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The girl squinted at him, confusion and irritation clear on her face.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Freshman aren’t allowed to think, either.” One of the seniors pointed out, helpfully. “That’s…three sets, by my count.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><i>Three sets?</i> Neil wondered. <i>Not allowed to think? </i>He was beginning to think Uncle Stuart was just fucking with him. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No showing emotion in the hallway!” One of the juniors, a tall boy with curly dark hair and a wide grin crowed. “Wow, you guys are just breaking<i> all  kinds </i>of rules already! Four!!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><i>How many stupid rules do they even </i><span>have</span><i>? </i>Neil wondered. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“This is going to be a long year.” Twin One  grumbled. “Hurry the <span>fuck</span> up!” He added, at a much higher volume. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You know what?” Twin Two mused, “I’m getting tired of telling these little shits the same thing over and over again. Let’s let their buddies do it. “</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Twin One nodded in agreement. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Drop.” He said. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Neil squinted at him. Twin Two rolled his eyes. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do push-ups.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How many?” The girl asked. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Twin One shot her a withering glare. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do push-ups until someone tells you to stop.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Correction,” a senior, a girl with a neat bob of white-blonde hair, added, “Four class sets.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Neil and the girl looked at her blankly. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Your class year is 11.” She explained. “So four sets of eleven.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Twin Two rolled his eyes. Neil was beginning to think that was the only expression he could make. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do forty-four push-ups.” He amended. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Neil sighed internally, and dropped. <span>Free college, </span>he reminded himself. The girl dropped next to him, and they both started doing push-ups. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Stop.” Twin One squatted down in between them, still holding on to his stick. “When you go down, you’re going to say ‘hurry’. And when you come up, you’re going to say ‘up’. As loud as you can. Got it?” The girl nodded, and Neil briefly fantasized about punching the little fucker right in the dick. It would be <i>so easy</i>. He was right there. Or Neil could grab his ankle, and yank his foot out from under him. But that would definitely draw more attention than he was already getting, so instead he just said “got it” and kept doing push-ups.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hurry!” Neil and the girl yelled, “Up! Hurry! Up!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After all forty-four push-ups, the rest of the freshman (including chihuahua) had been bullied into the hallway, and Neil and the girl were told to stand back up and “get with their buddies” at attention on the wall. Neil wasn’t tired, but he was definitely irritated. It didn’t help that there was <i>yet another</i> random upperclassman screaming full volume in his face. Apparently, Neil not tucking his tshirt  into his jeans was personally offending the kid. Neil tucked his shirt in, and counted the number of times the kid said “fuck” per sentence. He came to the conclusion that the kid— his name tag read ”Connors”— knew maybe four words total, and three of them were some version of “fuck”.  Also, Connors was crossing his arms to make his biceps look bigger. Neil eyed the piece of braided sky-blue cord looped around Connors’ shoulder, hanging off of his uniform. <i>Infantry. Makes sense. </i>Neil could practically hear his mother sigh. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><i>Free college</i>, he reminded himself, as Connors moved on, and another upperclassman, this one extremely tall and lanky swooped in to take his place. He looked a little like someone had taken a normal twelve-year-old boy and stretched him up about three feet. He sounded like it, too. His voice cracked constantly, and it was all Neil could do to keep a straight face. The girl next to him was having much less luck, and after one particularly bad squawk, she let out a snort of laughter. For one millisecond, their section of the hallway went silent. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>And then the yelling picked up again, and the girl was doing push ups, and so was Neil, because he was next to her. And then they were standing up again, their backs pressed up to the wall, being yelled at again. And then they were doing more push-ups. Neil wondered idly if he was ever going to get to unpack, or if they were just going to have the freshman out in the hallway all night.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We can do this all night, freshman!” Someone called across the fray, and the upperclassman whooped and cackled in response. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Eventually, Kevin’s voice cracked through the noise like a whip. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Rest.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Silence fell. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span>That’s a neat trick,</span> Neil thought. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Freshman. Go into the room with tape on the door. All of you. <span>Now.”</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The girl he’d been standing next to immediately ducked back into her room. Neil saw the flash of bright orange tape and followed. For a second, the two of them stood there awkwardly, staring at each other. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m Katelyn. Wright.” The girl offered a hand for him to shake. “Sorry for getting you smoked on the first day.” Neil took it, not knowing what else to do. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Neil?” He replied. “Josten.” He waved a hand at his shirt. “Smoked?” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>She opened her mouth to answer, but the door banged open, and the rest of their class scrambled in, packing themselves into the little dorm  room. Wilds and Kevin stood in the doorway, and the freshman all turned to look at them. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Talk to each other, get to know each other, don’t kill each other,” Wilds said, leaning casually on the doorframe, propping the door open with her boot. “You’ve got…thirty minutes until the hallway empties out and you can get to your rooms. Day—“ she made a little gesture like <span>continue, please</span>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re free from now until first call in the  morning. Put your things away, make sure your rooms are clean and your schedules are finalized, and be ready to train tomorrow. This was the easy part, freshman. Questions?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Chihuahua raised a tremulous hand. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You.” Kevin pointed at him. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What’s first call?” Chihuahua asked, “And <span>when</span> is it?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’ll find out.” Kevin said ominously, and let the door slam shut. The last thing Neil saw before it closed, locking him and nine other freshman in a dorm the size of a VW Beetle was Twin Two, his sharp eyes glaring at someone Neil couldn’t see, the hand that didn’t have the flag-stick twitching towards his pocket like he was going for a knife. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>There WILL be more context for a lot of the stuff that doesn’t make sense. That being said just remember; the weirder the story/plot point, the more likely it is that it Actually Happened, either to me or one of my friends.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you know what school this is based on, say nothing.</p>
<p>(It's not el cid, not even the ravens deserve that)</p>
<p>More chapters will come when I’m procrastinating my other writing.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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